Hillary, It depends upon what the meaning of the word IS, is.

I usually wouldn’t blog on general politics, but in the wake of yesterday’s announcement by FBI Director James Comey to not refer criminal charges to the Justice Department against Hillary Clinton, I could not help but to react in writing.

You see, I think truth is important. I think honesty and telling the truth is a sound character trait that should be acknowledged and valued. Conversely, when truth is ignored or bent to the advantage of the teller, that also should be noted and properly criticized.

I’m sure many of you are aware that Hillary Clinton has been under a year-long FBI investigation regarding mishandling of classified information on her private and government email systems. During this time she has repeatedly made statements that offered her explanation or point of view on a particular point. Now, I am not so foolish as to ignore the fact that some issues are complex. Some problems are not crystal clear and truth is further obscured by reporters with their own agendas. On many issues there are shades of grey that we must recognize. That is the world we live in but we must do our best to sort thru the information that we have. That said, we must not allow anyone, not ourselves, not our children and certainly not our political leaders to hide behind claims of grey when the truth is black and white.

Without getting into the details of the case, I just wanted to present a few of Hillary’s statements [CLINTON] and contrast those words with the statements made by FBI Director James Comey [THE FACTS] yesterday. If you prefer you can scan quickly through these pairs of comments and jump down to my closing thoughts that follow. (Note: The extractions are from: AP FACT CHECK: Clinton email claims collapse under FBI probe. By STEPHEN BRAUN and JACK GILLUM. Jul. 6, 2016 4:01 AM EDT) Emphasismine.
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CLINTON: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Actually, the FBI identified at least 113 emails that passed through Clinton’s server and contained materials that were classified at the time they were sent, including some that were Top Secret and referred to a highly classified special access program, Comey said.Most of those emails — 110 of them — were included among 30,000 emails that Clinton returned to the State Department around the time her use of a private email server was discovered. The three others were recovered from a forensic analysis of Clinton’s server. “Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation,” Comey said. Clinton and her aides “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” he said.

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CLINTON: “I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified.” NBC interview, July 2016.

THE FACTS: Clinton has separately clung to her rationale that there were no classification markings on her emails that would have warned her and others not to transmit the sensitive material. But the private system did, in fact, handle emails that bore markings indicating they contained classified information, Comey said. He said the marked emails were “a very small number.” But that’s not the only standard for judging how officials handle sensitive material, he added. “Even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know, or should know, that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”

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CLINTON: “I responded right away and provided all my emails that could possibly be work related” to the State Department. News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Not so, the FBI found. Comey said that when his forensic team examined Clinton’s server it found there were “several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000″ that had been returned by Clinton to the State Department.

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CLINTON: “I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for personal emails instead of two.” News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: This reasoning for using private email both for public business and private correspondence didn’t hold up in the investigation. Clinton “used numerous mobile devices to view and send email” using her personal account, Comey said. He also said Clinton had used different servers.

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CLINTON: “It was on property guarded by the Secret Service, and there were no security breaches. … The use of that server, which started with my husband, certainly proved to be effective and secure.” News conference, March 2015.

The FBI found that Clinton’s personal server was “not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail,” the director said.

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CLINTON campaign website: “There is no evidence there was ever a breach.”

THE FACTS: The campaign website claimed “no evidence” of a breach, a less categorical statement than Clinton herself made last year, when she said there was no breach. The FBI did not uncover a breach but made clear that that possibility cannot be ruled out. “We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account,” Comey said. He said evidence would be hard to find because hackers are sophisticated and can cover their tracks. Comey said his investigators learned that Clinton’s security lapses included using “her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.” Comey also noted that hackers breached the email accounts of several outsiders who messaged with Clinton.

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CLINTON: “I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department.” News conference, March 2015.

THE FACTS: Comey did not address Clinton’s reason for using a private server instead of a government one, but he highlighted the perils in routing sensitive information through a home server.

The FBI found that Clinton’s personal server was “not even supported by full-time security staff like those found at agencies and departments of the United States government or even with a commercial email service like Gmail,” the director said.

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Ok, I know that was a lot to digest but what should we, the average citizen, make of all of this? It’s clear that Hillary had access to highly sensitive information that was improperly handled. Whether the mishandling was intentional or not is not the issue. Whether or not a security breach took place is not the most immediate issue. Today, this is an issue of trust.

First, top secret security clearances are granted to those that are judged to have the highest commitment to safeguarding that information against compromise. Being granted a TS clearance is not a right, it is a privilege. As citizens we trust those that hold these clearances to exercise due diligence in protecting that information in our behalf. It is clear that she violated that promise of trust to the American people.

Second, and perhaps even more telling is the way that she participated in the investigation. The way she answered the questions was indirect as best, misleading, and perhaps even obstructive to those searching for truth. As you can see from the extracts above, many of her statements were in fact plainly not true. To me this is an indication of character. From her actions I sense in her an attitude that the laws don’t apply in the same way they do for you and me.

I was very surprised, after hearing Director Comey’s summary of findings, that he did not refer the case to the Department of Justice. I’m sure there are politics at play that I don’t understand, but one thing is clear, Mrs Clinton violated her written promises to safeguard classified information. On these grounds alone, I believe the Director of National Intelligence should immediately revoke all of her security clearances.

But, to tell you the truth, that will never happen. You see, for some people the word ‘is’ means ‘is’, and for others the word ‘is’ means some other convenient truth.

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3 thoughts on “Hillary, It depends upon what the meaning of the word IS, is.”

It seems very likely that James Comey was threatened….and possibly Loretta Lynch as well. I often think if that is what Bill and Hillary do to their cohorts in Washington DC? …..those they have been close to over the years…what will they do to you and me?

Jackie,
I’m not sure if he was directly threatened or not but the timing of certain events looks suspect. It certainly seems clear that for whatever reason (career, legacy etc) he did not want to be the one to make such an impact to the upcoming election.

We, as a nation, should never compromise the truth. Donald Trump said it best- the statement was “rigged” government. Like him or not, Trump tells it like it is. It scares me to think what Hillary will do or say as our President. She can be dangerous for this country and the people should not insult their intelligence by electing her.